My car has this annoying habit of making alot of noise when it is accelerating, especially from 15-60 mph. After that or when I am going at a constant velocity I dont get much noise. Its not just the engine, I think my dashboard is loose, sounds like my whole car is vibrating or something. It wasnt always like this. Please help, recommendations wanted ty.

 

If it isn't a tire out of balance, it could be a bad motor mount.

 

ya, im sure its not the wheels, thanks Ill start with the motor mounts. Tired of that vibration. Is that labor intensive? How much would someone charge to change the mounts? thanks again

 

Couldn't tell you exactly what someone would charge. Every shop charges a different labor rate. The main motor mount is fairly labor-intensive...it's the last thing that comes off before you remove the timing belt and water pump. You should look into changing those too if you are going that far into the engine, and you are or almost are due for those to be changed.

 

It's been a couple months but I finally changed my motor mounts. Well I had (sears) chang my upper and lower mounts cause I read these things are a pain in the *** to change. Anyways, I still have the damn vibration. I read that the "middle mount" was often the culprit in the vibration and that it is the hardest to change. Anyways my question is how many motor mounts does a 2003 dodge neon se 2.0 have? I saw one of your posts mention 4 mounts on a 2005 upper, lower rear-side and transmission. And what is the "middle mount" exactly, the transmission mount? Also, because I'm using sears and not OEM do you think I will still have vibration because of the difference in parts? Don't want to change the damn "middle mount" and still have vibration. (Did notice that idling vibration has increased btw). Thanks Darthrouth

 

Two torque struts (the upper and lower mounts), the engine mount (the middle mount) and the transmission mount. It is a guess of mine thus far that using a non-OEM engine mount causes the vibrations after the change. The OEM mount is filled with hydraulic fluid and aftermarket ones are not. I cannot say for sure that is the cause, but it seems everyone who uses the aftermarket mounts have vibration problems. Also, make sure the torque strut alignment procedure is done. Failure to do so will result in vibrations too.

 

O.K. Thanks, the people at sears said that my middle mount didn't need to be changed. From what I understand, its difficult to tell if you don't take the belt and waterpump, etc out right? Should i get it changed anyways?
Also if I do get the middle mount changed I will use OEM this time. Will tell if theres any difference in vibration.

 

Some people say they can tell without removing everything. I can't remember how they did so. If the torque struts are bad, the middle mount will wear more quickly as the engine and transmission can now torque (twist) back and forth during both acceleration and deceleration. I suppose if the torque struts weren't bad too long, it'd be OK. Other than that, my own opinion is any extended driving with such a condition will screw up the mount.

How many miles are on your car? If you are near the 100,000 mile mark, it wouldn't be too bad to just change the timing belt and water pump to save on labor later. I can give you links to everything online for MUCH cheaper than you'll find anywhere locally, if you'd like...if that's something you might want to do.

 

Ok, heres the results
2003 dodge neon 2.0 se 90000 miles.
Had Upper and lower mounts changed with aftermarket(non-oem) parts. Still had alot of vibration. Had the middle(engine) mount changed with an oem part. And no more vibration! Thanks for all your help darthoush. My concensus is that the vibration is definately caused by the middle mount. Don't know if oem helped with middle mount, but I can tell oem doesn't matter for the upper and lower. Also did not change my transmission mount.

 

Awesome! Glad to hear! All of us that go with the $30 aftermarket mount still (or gain) vibration issues it seems. After contacting both Dodge and Anchor, my conclusion was an OEM mount was needed.

It also goes to prove the point about being able to [not] tell if the middle mount is bad without removing it. Either that, or the middle mount was an aftermarket one, lol.